Before you read any further, please realize that this thread has nothing to do with Suretype. The autotext substitutions happen whether your blackberry is using Suretype, multi-tap, or QWERTY to input text. Having said that...

Have people run into any problematic autotext completions in the built-in autotext database?

For instance they have "lets"->"let's", but "lets" is a valid English word so it shouldn't always be mapped to "let's". I changed the entry to map "letus"->"let's" - it's still easy to type, but doesn't conflict with an existing valid English word now. Note that after you hit space and the BB makes the substitution you can always backspace twice and the substitution will be reverted. That makes a great workaround but that's a bit of extra typing to accomplish when the option of changing the autotext database entry can avoid the problem in the first place.

Any others? Here's a format to use to share problem entries:

Mapping: "lets"->"let's"
Problem: "lets" is a valid word - "The boss lets us leave early on Friday"
Solution: Change to "letus"->"let's" or "lts"->"let's"

(from Urbanite):
Mapping: "wont"->"won't"
Problem: "wont" is a valid word, though obscureUrbanite's Solution: I don't use that word. It makes me sound pretentious.flar's Solution: Change to something like "wonot"->"won't" or "wnt"->"won't"

Also, feel free to share any custom entries you make that you think would be generally useful.

I don't consider that a solution, it's a workaround. These are supposed to be productivity tools, not "tests of your observation skills".

The vast majority of the autotext entries map something that is incredibly unlikely that you would want to type into something that is very likely what you meant to type. You can "just trust it" for those entries.

These odd entries map something that you may have actually wanted to type (very rare in the case of "id", but very common in the case of "lets") into something else.

Personally I prefer to modify the entries so that autotext becomes more reliable and I don't end up sending text with bad grammar. If you'd prefer to watch the screen for more failure conditions, then feel free.

I don't consider that a solution, it's a workaround. These are supposed to be productivity tools, not "tests of your observation skills".

The vast majority of the autotext entries map something that is incredibly unlikely that you would want to type into something that is very likely what you meant to type. You can "just trust it" for those entries.

These odd entries map something that you may have actually wanted to type (very rare in the case of "id", but very common in the case of "lets") into something else.

Personally I prefer to modify the entries so that autotext becomes more reliable and I don't end up sending text with bad grammar. If you'd prefer to watch the screen for more failure conditions, then feel free.

The SureType keyboard is a compromise at best. If you do not like it, go to a QWERTY device. You seem to think that someone owes you better than what it is.

"I'll" always comes out "ill"... pisses me off. I think the only way this can be fixed is if RIM updates SureType to Predicative Text. That way, it'd analyze the words preceeding and choose an appropriate one. I'm not sure if it can very easily be converted w/ a software fix though.

Autotext is handy at times and frustrating other times. One of the most common ones I have ran into is typing IM for instant messaging but getting "I'm" instead. More often than not, I do mean to type "I'm" but many times I do want IM instead. I may one day finally just delete it from the Autotext list. I find that Autotext is helpful many times for terms with non-alphanumeric characters and makes it much easier and quicker to type those terms.

Autotext is handy at times and frustrating other times. One of the most common ones I have ran into is typing IM for instant messaging but getting "I'm" instead. More often than not, I do mean to type "I'm" but many times I do want IM instead. I may one day finally just delete it from the Autotext list. I find that Autotext is helpful many times for terms with non-alphanumeric characters and makes it much easier and quicker to type those terms.

The nice thing about it is that it's easy enough to just edit the list and get rid of these problematic entries.

A suggestion, you could add an "imsg"->"IM" (Specified case) entry and then not only can you choose between "IM" and "I'm" on the fly, but you won't have to capitalize it by hand (or thumb)...

Quick solution, spell out the two words instead of one.
Example: I'll go do that today
Fix: I will go do that today.

I agree that this would avoid the problematic substitution in some cases, but contractions sound more natural to convey certain moods when you are writing something that is part of a conversation. Notice that I used "I've" above, and if I'd have used "I have" I would have sounded like I was making an emphatic statement rather than a casual one.

(As to the issue of "I'll", as someone pointed out above you can get that by typing "il". On my old BB 957 they had it set up so that "ill" mapped to "I'll" and I quickly changed that because "ill" was an English word. I noticed that the Pearl came out of the box with this different mapping so I guess enough people complained about its ill manners (hehe).)